“Drugs & Money,” the event put on last week by a class unofficially known as “Burke 101,” has a slightly misleading title. There were no glass bongs on display at the Burke Museum. In fact, Cheech and Chong would have found little interest in the items on display and the facts given, unless perhaps, they had a sudden itch for cultural anthropology they felt the need to scratch.

Like my backpack, I had to check my assumptions about drugs and money at the door. The event, part of the After Hours at the Burke series, took a different angle on them, catering to ancient indigenous mind-altering substances and legal tender from around the world.

Like the drug kava, for example.

“[Kava] is drank for relaxing, for putting everyone into a state of ease,” said UW anthropology senior Sean Forster, whose group had a display table set up for the event. “People feel better. People feel a bit happier. It also heightens perception and mental acuity.”

The Burke 101 group presenting on kava did seem a little relaxed.

“You don’t really get high from it,” said UW junior Jason Wurz. “You’re meant to have a dropper full a day as a daily supplement. You’d have to consume this whole bottle to see any noticeable effect.”

Kava, I learned from the group, originated thousands of years ago in the South Pacific. Back then, kava leaves were ground in ornate wooden bowls, and the tea was served from during social gatherings and other ceremonies, instead of being supplied in ready-made dropper bottles. The group had a bottle with them; however, to my dismay, they wouldn’t allow anyone to sample from it.

The group presenting on kava is one of eight different groups showing their drug and money of choice. In Burke 101, students not only learn about a particular drug or money, but also learn how to inform others about novel topics.

“This event is part of our grade,” said UW sophomore Christine Woodward. She added that it’s difficult to explain a completely foreign idea to other people.

Larkin Hood, the professor teaching Burke 101, concurred.

“No matter what the subject focus is,” she said. “We’re learning how to teach people in a museum setting.”

Woodward and her group chose the topic “stone money,” also known as rai, money that looks more like it came off the axle of a Flintstone’s car rather than anything that can be slipped into wallets or piggy banks. The currency was used in Yap, an island on the western Pacific Ocean, and was already in the Burke Museum’s possession.

“The stones can get up to 10 feet in diameter,” she said. “The value of the money was determined by how big it was and by how many people died bringing it back and forth.”

Rather than being mass-printed, this money was laboriously quarried 300 miles away from Yap, on the island of Palau. The money is made of a limestone that is not native to Yap, and it was the taxing effort to transport the stones that gave them their value.

“The last stone money was quarried in 1930 because the Europeans came in with their steamships and made it easier to transport,” Woodward said. “And since people stopped dying bringing it back and forth, it lost its importance.”

If I felt inclined to travel, I could find out what it’s like to carry one. Indeed, these stones are still used and traded with today. The theme of the course this year revolves around the ancient things that are still used, she said.

“This year, we tried the ethnology division, which deals with living cultures,” Hood said. “So the things you’re seeing here tonight are things that people have made and used for a long time, and still are.”

It seems strange to think of a culture today that still rolls gigantic stones around when most people have converted to, some would say, more practical currencies. But the Yapese have held on strong to tradition, though they have begun using U.S. dollars as their primary means of currency.

“They don’t quarry the stones anymore,” Hood said. “But they still trade on them.”

For Woodward, the class taught her about more than just drugs and currency.

“The best thing, other than learning about the actual culture of Micronesia and Yap, is that a lot of this class is learning how to communicate with other people,” she said. “We have to explain something that no one has ever heard of, impart our information on someone else.”

Reach reporter Eric Staples at features@dailyuw.com.